"pan Pizza" (A La Pizza Hut)

[andi1235]

Gluten free copycat "Pan Pizza!"

Ingredients:

1 cup milk

1/2 cups water

2 tbsp. honey

1 1/2 tbsp. yeast (or so)

2 tsp. xanthan gum

3 cups gluten-free Flour Blend (approximately 1/3 starch, 2/3 flours - my blend was 1 cup sorghum, 1 cup rice, and 1 cup tapioca starch)

Pinch or two of salt (I used sea salt - how salty you like your pizza crust is up to you)

Olive oil (or other oil of your choice)

Spices to taste (garlic powder, basil, oregano, thyme, etc.)

Directions:

Combine the warm water, honey, & yeast in a bowl & let stand until the mixture bubbles, about 5 minutes.

Add the flour to your mixing bowl. Mix in xanthan gum, basil, oregano, garlic powder, & salt. Add the liquid ingredients and mix until you get a soft, sticky dough.

Liberally oil your pan. Oil your hands or a spatula. Press the pizza dough into your chosen pan (I use a steel paella pan - something steel or cast iron works REALLY well, and gives the crispy outside that makes pan pizza so good).

Let rise in a warm place until the dough has approximately doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Par-bake the crust for about 10 minutes. You don't want it cooked, you just want it more or less solid.

Remove the crust (CAREFULLY) from oven, and oil the top of the baked crust. The oil on the top and bottom are IMPORTANT, since they are what give the crust the crispy outside while retaining the chewy middle bits).

Top with your favorite pizza toppings, and bake for another 15 minutes, or so, until everything is cooked to your satisfaction. My cheese was quite browned, which is how I like it!

Remove (VERY CAREFULLY) from the oven, let cool, and enjoy!! Especially if you're using a paella pan, it will be difficult to safely remove from the oven, so be EXTRA careful. I almost lost my pizza when I made it the first time, because the only downside to my pan is the little tiny handles, which are VERY hot after 20 minutes at 500 degrees!

A bigger pan will mean a thinner crust, so experiment with pans and making more or less dough until you find what works for your pan. This recipe could easily be divided into several mini personal pizzas, although I'd watch the cooking time VERY carefully so they didn't burn. You'd probably par-bake the crust less, and bake the finished pizzas for less time.

BTW, after a bit of hunting around and looking at wheat-based copycat recipes, it looks like the milk is an important ingredient in making this recipe taste "authentic." I suspect it's because it adds protein to the mix, so if you can't have dairy I'd try using a high-protein nut milk of some kind, or replacing the milk with water and using high-protein flour in your blend. I imagine it would still be pretty good pizza, even dairy-free.

For variety, I want to try an alfredo-sauce breakfast pizza sometime (alfredo instead of tomato sauce, eggs, cheese, maybe bacon), and you could probably get really fancy and make the crust into one of those cheesestick crusts The dough is sturdy enough that you could totally line the outside of the crust with string-cheese sticks (I'd probably pull them in half length-wise), and then wrap them in crust. I'd do it before even the rise cycle, personally - you'd just want to watch it extra carefully so the cheese didn't burn.

[andi1235]

Update: it looks like the recipe needs a bit more water, and probably a bit of oil in the dough, to be really perfect. I would try about 2 tablespoons of oil in the dough, and another half-cup or so of water. My pizza crust was a bit dry. It also didn't rise quite enough, so maybe I should just have been more patient this time!

[sa1937]

This sounds so good. I used to love the pan pizzas. What size pan did you use?